carnot engine
An ideal engine, the most efficient theoretically possible, is called a Carnot Engine. Its efficiency is given by the following formula, where the temperatures are, respectively, the temperature of the exhaust environment and the temperature of the heat input, in Kelvins. In a Carnot engine heat is input and exhausted in isothermal cycles, and the efficiency is . In all real engines heat is lost to the environment, thus the ideal efficiency is never even close to being obtained.